The Years Between | Page 8

nor hurt by the most mighty adverse
potentate unless the townsmen gave consent thereto'--BUNYAN'S
_Holy War_)
_A tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod,
A private under
Fairfax,
A minister of God--
Two hundred years and thirty
Ere
Armageddon came
His single hand portrayed it,
And Bunyan was
his name!_
He mapped, for those who follow,
The world in which we are--

'This famous town of Mansoul'
That takes the Holy War
Her true
and traitor people,
The gates along her wall,
From Eye Gate unto
Feel Gate,
John Bunyan showed them all.

All enemy divisions,
Recruits of every class,
And highly-screened
positions
For flame or poison-gas,
The craft that we call modern,

The crimes that we call new,
John Bunyan had 'em typed and filed

In Sixteen Eighty-two
Likewise the Lords of Looseness
That hamper faith and works,
The
Perseverance-Doubters,
And Present-Comfort shirks,
With brittle
intellectuals
Who crack beneath a strain--
John Bunyan met that
helpful set
In Charles the Second's reign.
Emmanuel's vanguard dying
For right and not for rights,
My Lord
Apollyon lying
To the State-kept Stockholmites,
The Pope, the
swithering Neutrals,
The Kaiser and his Gott--
Their rôles, their
goals, their naked souls--
He knew and drew the lot.
Now he hath left his quarters,
In Bunhill Fields to lie.
The wisdom
that he taught us
Is proven prophecy--
One watchword through our
armies,
One answer from our lands--
'No dealings with Diabolus

As long as Mansoul stands.
_A pedlar from a hovel,
The lowest of the low,
The father of the
Novel,
Salvation's first Defoe,
Eight blinded generations
Ere
Armageddon came,
He showed us how to meet it,
And Bunyan was
his name!_
THE HOUSES
(A SONG OF THE DOMINIONS)
1898
'Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad,
In thy house or
my house is half the world's hoard;
By my house and thy house hangs
all the world's fate,
On thy house and my house lies half the world's
hate.

For my house and thy house no help shall we find
Save thy house and
my house--kin cleaving to kind:
If my house be taken, thine tumbleth
anon,
If thy house be forfeit, mine followeth soon.
'Twixt my house and thy house what talk can there be
Of headship or
lordship, or service or fee?
Since my house to thy house no greater
can send
Than thy house to my house--friend comforting friend;

And thy house to my house no meaner can bring
Than my house to
thy house--King counselling King.
RUSSIA TO THE PACIFISTS
God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, But--leave
your sports a little while--the dead are borne this way! Armies dead and
Cities dead, past all count or care.
God rest you, merry gentlemen,
what portent see you there?
Singing.--Break ground for a wearied host
That have no ground to keep.
Give them the rest that they covet most,
And who shall next to sleep, good sirs,
In such a trench to sleep?
God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, but give us leave to pass. We go to
dig a nation's grave as great as England was.
For this Kingdom and
this Glory and this Power and this Pride Three hundred years it
flourished--in three hundred days it died.
Singing--Pour oil for a frozen throng,
That lie about the ways.
Give them the warmth they have lacked so
long
And what shall be next to blaze, good sirs,
On such a pyre to blaze?
God rest you, thoughtful gentlemen, and send your sleep is light!
Remains of this dominion no shadow, sound, or sight,
Except the
sound of weeping and the sight of burning fire, And the shadow of a

people that is trampled into mire.
Singing.--Break bread for a starving folk
That perish in the field.
Give them their food as they take the
yoke ...
And who shall be next to yield, good sirs,
For such a bribe to yield?
God rest you, merry gentlemen, and keep you in your mirth! Was ever
kingdom turned so soon to ashes, blood, and earth? 'Twixt the summer
and the snow--seeding-time and